Placing notices for creditors: The Gazette and a local newspaper

When someone dies, there is a good chance nobody knows the full picture of what they owed. An old credit agreement. An unpaid trade account. A debt to a friend that never made it onto paper.

If you are the executor or administrator, that gap matters. You are the one who pays the estate out. If a debt surfaces after the money has gone to the beneficiaries, you can be the one left holding it.

Placing a deceased estates notice is how you protect yourself. This article explains what the notice is, where it goes, when to place it, and what it costs.

What a deceased estates notice is

A deceased estates notice is a short public advertisement. It says that you are administering the estate of the person who died, and it invites anyone owed money to come forward by a set date.

You may also hear it called a statutory advertisement, a Trustee Act notice, or a Section 27 notice. They all mean the same thing.

The legal footing depends on where the estate is being administered:

• England and Wales: Section 27 of the Trustee Act 1925
• Northern Ireland: the Trustee Act (Northern Ireland) 1958
• Scotland: the Confirmation of Executors (Scotland) Act 1823

Placing a notice is not compulsory. It is strongly recommended, and most professional executors do it as a matter of routine.

Why it matters

The notice does one specific job. It shows that you made a proper effort to find creditors before you handed the estate over.

Once the notice has been published and the claim period has passed, you can distribute the estate without being personally responsible for debts you did not know about. If a creditor turns up later, they can still pursue the beneficiaries for what they received. They cannot come after you.

That is the whole point. The notice moves the risk off your shoulders.

There is a second benefit that is easy to overlook. The notice gives creditors a name and an address to write to. Estates are often chaotic in the first few months. Post gets redirected, phones get disconnected, and a company chasing a small balance has nowhere to send it. The notice fixes that.

What happens if you do not place one

Nothing, most of the time. Plenty of estates are distributed without a notice and no creditor ever appears.

The problem is that you have no way of knowing which kind of estate you are dealing with until it is too late.

If you distribute the estate and a creditor comes forward afterwards, you may have to pay that debt yourself. Not from the estate, because the estate is gone. From your own money. You can ask the beneficiaries to return what they were given, but you cannot make them, and asking is often the harder conversation.

The risk is higher than people expect when:

• The person who died lived alone, so nobody saw their post
• Their paperwork was disorganised or incomplete
• They ran a business, or were self-employed
• They had care fees, private medical bills, or a recent house move
• They were estranged from part of the family

For a fixed cost of roughly £100 to £400, most executors decide the protection is worth having.

When to place the notice

Place it after you have the grant.

That means the grant of probate or letters of administration in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, or Confirmation in Scotland.

The Gazette will let you place a notice earlier, with just a death certificate. We would not usually recommend it, for two reasons.

You need to be the right person. Until the grant is issued, your authority to act is not yet confirmed. A notice inviting creditors to write to someone who does not yet formally have the role is not a strong foundation.

Creditors need to know who to contact. The notice names you and gives an address for claims. That only works properly once you are confirmed as the person handling the estate, with a bank account for the estate open and the paperwork in place to deal with what comes in.

There is also a practical sequencing point. The claim period runs from the date the notice is published, not from the date of death. Placing the notice as soon as the grant arrives means the clock starts early, and the two periods run side by side rather than one after the other.

How long you wait afterwards

England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Section 27 sets a minimum of two months from the date of publication. In practice, most notices set the claim deadline at two months and one day. Once that date passes, and you have dealt with any claims that came in, you can distribute.

Scotland. The convention is different. Scottish executors are expected to wait six months from the date of death before making final distributions. That six-month window is the well-established period for creditors to intimate a claim, and it runs from the death rather than from publication.

In every case, waiting out the notice period does not remove your other duties. You still need to be satisfied that inheritance tax and known debts are settled before anything goes out.

Where to place the notice

There are two places, and you want both.

1. The Gazette

The Gazette is the UK's official public record. It has three editions, and you use the one that matches the jurisdiction:

Where the estate is administered	Edition
England and Wales	The London Gazette
Scotland	The Edinburgh Gazette
Northern Ireland	The Belfast Gazette

Creditors and their solicitors search The Gazette because it is the recognised place to look. This is the notice that carries the legal weight.

2. A local newspaper

The Gazette is the formal record. A local paper is what an ordinary person or a small local business actually reads.

Place the advertisement in a newspaper local to the area where the person who died lived. If the estate includes a property somewhere else, place a second advertisement in a paper local to that property as well.

You can book the newspaper advertisement through The Gazette at the same time as your main notice, or contact the paper's classified advertising desk directly.

What goes in the notice

The notice is short. It usually includes:

• The full name of the person who died, along with any other names they were known by
• Their last address
• The date they died
• Your name as executor or administrator, or the name of the solicitor acting
• An address for claims to be sent to
• The deadline for claims

One thing to be aware of. The address you give becomes part of a permanent public record. If you do not want your home address published, The Gazette offers a forwarding service. They publish a PO Box instead and pass any correspondence on to you.

What it costs

These are the figures from The Gazette's 2026 price list, which took effect on 1 January 2026. VAT is charged at 20%. Prices do change, so check the current list before you order.

Item	Price excluding VAT	Roughly, including VAT
Deceased estates notice, placed using the online form	£96.55	£115.86
Deceased estates notice, submitted another way	£131.70	£158.04
Newspaper placement arranged through The Gazette	£240.00	£288.00
Address forwarding service	£87.55	£105.06

So a typical executor placing both notices online, without the forwarding service, is looking at somewhere around £400 including VAT.

Booking the newspaper advertisement directly with the paper can work out cheaper or dearer than the flat rate The Gazette charges. Rates vary a lot between titles. If cost matters, it is worth ringing the paper's advertising desk for a quote and comparing.

Two things worth knowing:

• The estate pays, not you. The cost of the notices is a proper expense of administering the estate. Pay it from the estate account, or pay it yourself and reclaim it before you distribute.
• Keep the proof. You can buy a copy of the published notice, and the newspaper will provide a PDF of the advertisement. File both with your estate accounts. If anyone ever questions whether you did your job properly, that is your evidence.

How to place one

1. Wait until your grant or Confirmation has been issued.
2. Register for an account on The Gazette website.
3. Choose the right edition, then select Personal Legal, then Deceased Estates.
4. Fill in the details of the person who died and your own contact details.
5. Upload the grant, letters of administration, or Confirmation.
6. Add the newspaper placement and the forwarding service if you want them.
7. Pay by card, and check the proof carefully before it goes to print.

Read the proof properly. Names, dates, and the last address all need to be right. A notice with the wrong details in it does not do the job it was placed to do.

If someone does make a claim

Do not panic, and do not pay immediately.

Ask for evidence of the debt. A statement, an agreement, an invoice. Check it against the paperwork you already have, in case it has been settled or is being chased twice.

If the claim is valid, pay it from the estate before you distribute. If you are not sure whether it is valid, or the amount is large enough to change what the beneficiaries receive, take advice from a solicitor before you respond. A short piece of paid advice is much cheaper than getting this wrong.

When to get professional help

Notices are usually straightforward. Some situations are not, and it is sensible to bring in a solicitor if:

• You think the estate may be insolvent, meaning the debts are larger than the assets
• A creditor is disputing the amount, or threatening action
• There are missing beneficiaries as well as unknown creditors
• The estate includes a business, a trust, or assets abroad

Solicitors are the right answer for genuinely complicated estates. Most straightforward ones do not need one, and placing a notice is not, on its own, a reason to instruct.

In short

Place a deceased estates notice in The Gazette and a local newspaper, once your grant or Confirmation has arrived. Wait out the claim period. Then distribute, knowing that unknown debts are no longer your personal problem.

It is one of the least expensive and most useful things an executor can do.

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